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ALAIN-G. GAGNON, ANDR LECOURS, AND GENEVIVE NOOTENS ~eds.!. Contemporary Majority Nationalism. By Eric Kaufmann 713 CHRISTOPHE PARENT. Le concept dtat fdral multinational. Essai sur lunion des peoples. By Franois Rocher 714 ANN E. TOWNS. Women and States: Norms and Hierarchies in International Society. By Andrea Chandler 716 GENEVIVE NOOTENS. Souverainet dmocratique, justice et mondialisation. Essai sur la dmocratie librale et le cosmopolitisme. By Alain Ltourneau 718 BENOT PELLETIER. Une certaine ide du Qubec. Parcours dun fdraliste. De la rflexion laction. By Franois-Olivier Dorais 720 JARED J. WESLEY. Code Politics: Campaigns and Culture on the Canadian Prairies. By Allen Mills 722 LOUIS CT, BENOT LVESQUE, ET GUY MORNEAU ~dir.!. tat stratge & participation citoyenne. By Gilles Paquet 724 DAVID WELSH. The Rise and Fall of Apartheid. By Tom Lodge 726 MARIO TEL ~ed.!. The European Union and Global Governance. By Anastasia Chebakova 727 ANNE-MARIE GINGRAS. Mdias et dmocratie. Le grand malentendu. By Catherine Ct 728 MICHAEL MANIATES AND JOHN MEYER ~eds.!. The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice. By Peter Stoett 730 PASCAL BOUVIER. Petite histoire de la philosophie politique. By Djamel Chikh 731 DAVID E. SMITH. Federalism and the Constitution of Canada. By Jean-Phillipe Gauvin 734 PAUL CARTLEDGE. Ancient Greek Thought in Practice. By Sara MacDonald 735 MARC JACQUEMAIN ET PASCAL DELWITT ~dir.!. Engagements actuels, actualit des engagements. By Jol Madore 736

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Contemporary Majority Nationalism Alain-G. Gagnon, Andr Lecours and Genevive Nootens, eds. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2011, pp. 248. doi:10.10170S0008423912000509

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Ethnic studies emerged from the American urban context of the 1920s and has been centred in departments of anthropology and sociology. The systematic study of nationalism is more recent, dating only from the early 1980s. A European-origin discourse, it is anchored mainly in departments of history and political science. In both cases, however, the focus has been on minorities, with the majority either subsumed within the state or portrayed as a kind of taken-for-granted backcloth against which minority exotica can be studied. This impressive edited volume cuts against this grain. It grows out of the work of Alain Gagnon and his research group on plurinational societies at Universit de Qubec Montral, arguably Canadas leading research network in nationalism. The groups previous focus has been on minority nationalisms, but this book addresses the oft-neglected phenomenon of majority nationalism and how it relates to minority nations. Not all of the chapters succeed in this endeavour, but there are enough high points to more than justify the purchase price. The most original and germane piece is the introduction by Lecours and Nootens. This neatly sets out the state of the field of majority nationalism to date. This feat alone guarantees its relevance to scholars. It follows on from their important Dominant nationalism, dominant ethnicity ~2009!. That work marked the coming of age of these rising scholars and was the first appearance of the concept of dominant nationalism. Their chapter in Majority Nationalism clarifies the concept and attempts to distinguish majority nationalism from cognate ideas such as dominant ethnicity or state nationalism. They nicely navigate between these shoals by claiming that while the classic work on state nationalism by Gellner, Tilly and other modernists has tended toward the materialistic, that on dominant ethnicity and ethnic nationalism has overemphasized culture. Where Lecours and Nootens part company is in their focus on the non-material aspects of state-defined nations such as Canada. In other words, just because the nation is coextensive with the state and defined by civic elements does not mean it can be reduced to the material functions of the Weberian state. While I largely accept their analysis, the work of Philip Resnick must be considered, at the very least, to be a forerunner of the majority nationalism approach. This said, there is certainly a need for a book which offers a sustained examination of the phenomenon. The main body of the book brings together a high-powered collection of scholars from both sides of the Atlantic. Part I features four papers, from Alain Dieckhoff, Angel Casti@v#nera, Louis Dupont and John Coakley, focusing on theoretical aspects of the problem. Part II applies this framework to the cases of France and Britain ~John Loughlin!, Canada ~James Bickerton!, the United States ~Liah Greenfeld! and Spain ~Enric Fossas!. Part one moves in a number of different directions. Alan Dieckhoff nicely demonstrates that globalization has worked to strengthen rather than weaken national and ethnic sentiment. Angel Casti@v#nera alerts us to the manifold connections and analogies between personal biographies and national narratives. John Coakley deploys his deep scholarship to offer a new typology of majority strategies for managing ethnic diversity based on inclusionexclusion and group recognition versus non-recognition. Louis Dupont offers what is arguably the most unconventional and original chapter in the book. It nicely encapsulates the central issue by setting up the device of the vivre ensemble, a cultural composition that weaves together majority and minority aspirations within a stable whole. His writing is light, and he uses metaphors well to nudge our minds out of their customary grooves. Thus, in describ-

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ing the vivre ensemble of Britain, he writes: The English planet is at the centre of the British universe: the merged nationalities orbit closely around the centre while the ethnic cultures orbit further away. Not all will agree with his assessment that the United States formed around a clear WASP ethnic core while France was a universalist political compact between distinct ethnic regions. Yet this nice unseating of New WorldOld World stereotypes is a welcome departure from orthodoxy. So, too, is the view that multiculturalism and nationalism are, in a sense, two sides of the same majority nationalist coin. Among the case studies, Bickerton offers a cogent, fluid account of the thirtyyear tension between the charter-based unitary nationalism of the Anglophone majority and the linguistic project of Quebec, with its demand for a binational Canada. Fossas outlines a similar tension in the Spanish case, likewise focusing on legal political aspects. Loughlin moves deftly through the histories of France and Britain to argue that centralizers like Chvenement in France or Thatcher in Britain may have represented the last gasps of a dying order as nationality is recast along pluralist lines. Fossas, using the example of Spains majority nationalist Peoples Party, suggests this may not be a fait accomplit. Greenfelds examination of the American case confirms this view, suggesting that ethnic and religious diversity in America has tended to become trivialized and Americanized upon contact with the powerful voluntarism and individualism which pervades American society. While authors might have stuck more closely to the editors hymn sheet by distinguishing majority nationalism from the state, on the one hand, and dominant ethnicity, on the other, the book broadly hits its mark. In nicely plumbing the depths of the majorityminority dialectic in nationalism, it renders a service to all scholars of nationalism and deserves to be widely read. ERIC KAUFMANN Birkbeck College

Le concept dtat fdral multinational. Essai sur lunion des peuples Christophe Parent Bruxelles, P.I.E. Peter Lang, collection Diversitas , 2011, 492 pages doi:10.10170S0008423912000820 La ncessit de prendre en compte la prsence de plusieurs entits nationales au sein dun mme espace politique tatique a conduit plusieurs chercheurs, politologues, juristes, philosophes et sociologues remettre en question les paramtres traditionnels de ltat-nation. Cette mutation de la pense librale a conduit au dveloppement du concept dtat multinational qui rpond la ncessit de la reconnaissance de la diversit culturelle et de son inscription dans ltat. Pour Christophe Parent, le concept dtat multinational renvoie, pour lessentiel, lide selon laquelle la communaut politique sest construite sur la base dun pacte librement consenti entre nations souveraines et que celles-ci disposent dun droit lautodtermination. Lide dtat multinational snonce minimalement sous quatre formes distinctes : il vise, dans son acception la plus simple, dcrire une ralit qui touche aux trs nombreuses communauts politiques o lon retrouve des revendications nationalistes de nature politico-identitaires; il interpelle les thories librales classiques de ltat dont le sujet principal est lindividu et, en ce faisant, laissent de ct les composantes nationales qui sy trouvent; il permet de prendre la mesure des amnagements juridicoinstitutionnels, particulirement de type fdratif, qui tentent de rendre compte de la diversit; finalement, il se dcline sous forme de projet politique raliser pour les nations minoritaires en qute de reconnaissance et de statut politique particulier au sein despaces politiques dj constitus. Louvrage de Christophe Parent propose une remarquable analyse de ce concept. Il en prsente la gense, dveloppe une riche